


Cure

by Teland



Series: Loose Ends [2]
Category: Lost Boys (Movies)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Established Relationship, M/M, Problematic Relationship Choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-02-08
Updated: 2000-02-08
Packaged: 2020-12-21 01:28:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21066521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teland/pseuds/Teland
Summary: Pure again.





	Cure

School has started and Michael's pretty sure they all   
can smell it on him. The taint. 

Just about everybody at Monroe High lived through   
their own long, strange Santa Carla summers but they   
all know he's different. He knows they do, because of the   
way they look at him. The way people neither invite him  
nor explicitly shut him out.

David's blood in him, maybe, but more probably his   
own. Too heated, too close beneath his skin. They all   
know, and so it's only the others along the periphery   
who pay him any mind. 

The one with the glasses over there by himself, trying   
to escape through a book.

That girl with the shadows under her eyes and the   
sweet acid sweat at her temples.

A few others, here and there, and *they* look at him   
with a strange blend of hope and contempt.

Michael just watches, and goes through the motions   
of life as a high school junior. He hands in just about  
all of his assignments, just about on time. He goes to   
just about all of his classes.

He asks out the shadow girl, and idly lets himself   
consider her to be *his* shadow girl for a while. Paints  
a picture of the two of them on the outside of it all,   
black leather jarring against all the pastel neon and   
tanned white skin. He lets her drift away from him   
again with some relief -- there had been an edge of   
permanence in the fantasies that was just too much   
to take.

Permanent mediocrity, in life as well as deed. 

Michael wants a lot more than that. 

Michael wants to feel. On the inside, where no one can   
see but him, not if he doesn't want them to. He wants   
pieces of that belonging, wants to devour them whole   
and make them his own. 

He deserves it, really. If it wasn't for him, if it wasn't...  
it was complicated. The important part of it all was   
that Michael had sacrificed bits and pieces of himself,   
innocence and dreams both, and he desperately needed   
them back.

Needs them back. And Sammy knows.

Michael sees the way his brother, his beautiful little   
brother looks at him, and knows the look for what it   
is: Simple love. Unconditional, uncomplicated. Sammy   
knows that Michael hurts, and wants so badly to make   
it better for him.

Sammy makes sure he eats, and sometimes makes   
him warm milk at night for no reason at all. Sammy   
gets invited to all the best parties -- even the ones just   
for seniors -- and always tries to bring Michael along. 

It makes his heart swell, big and full and aching as   
anything else, and sometimes Michael almost goes   
along... but then he thinks about what it would be to   
see Sammy surrounded by all those bright bright   
strangers, and him the brightest of them all.

How would they see his smile? How close would they   
get?

Would there be a girl? Someone tanned and blonde  
and smiling, softnesses tempered with healthy   
muscle, warm and hungry for Sammy? Sammy would   
be able to taste the sweetly spiked punch on her   
breath, but he wouldn't push her away...

And always Michael wrenches a smile onto his face   
and turns his brother down, pushes him a little   
towards the door.

And Sammy never takes the push for a goodbye.   
Sammy always leans right into it, until Michael's  
palm is flat against his brother's still narrow chest,   
flat against the beat of his heart. Sammy waits there   
until Michael relents and lets him close enough for a  
hug, for a bit of wrestling that leaves Michael with   
Sammy's clean fresh scent in his nose for the   
duration of the too-long night.

And Michael knows with all his heart that *Sammy*   
knows that was what he needed all along anyway...

Why else would he give it?

When Michael dreams it's always the same. Blood in  
his mouth, Sammy in his arms. The colors fade   
before the shadows, but everything is sharp just the   
same. Sammy's sweet scent and still, trusting body.   
The taste of something like heaven and the bone deep   
satisfaction of sated grief. 

He knows what it means. 

Tonight the dream wakes him just before one, or   
perhaps it's just the sound of Sammy trying -- and   
failing -- to sneak in without waking him up. It's   
about an hour past his Saturday curfew, which is   
actually pretty early for him. Michael listens, counts   
the creaky floorboards.

One, two, two and a half, and Sammy's at his closet   
door, three, four and a complaining squeak and   
Sammy's on his own bed. Michael can't quite   
distinguish specifics from the sound of rustling   
cloth, he just knows his brother is undressing as   
quietly as possible. He waits for the rustling to stop,   
waits for the squeaks of the mattress to slow to the   
even-ness of a boy preparing to sleep. 

More minutes pass in increasing silence, but Michael   
remains wide awake. Waiting. 

And then he slips out of bed himself, silent with the   
practice of many long nights, and steps softly out of   
his room and down the short hall.

The first night after they had killed the vampires   
Sammy had left his door open, with a cheerfully   
defiant smile for Michael and Michael alone. Sammy   
always left it open at least a crack from that night on,  
and Michael accepted the gift gratefully. 

Accepts it now, as well, widening the crack until he   
can see moonlight falling across Sammy's face and   
one outflung arm.

The silvery light is distancing, though. Tonight   
Michael can't quite accept that and moves into the   
room itself, glancing around at the oddly neat piles   
of clutter. At the posters on the wall of dark,   
pale-skinned celebrities.

He wants very badly to tell Sammy that he   
understands, but it would be wrong to say the words   
aloud. It would break the fragile peace they have here,  
in these nights, when it's just the two of them and the   
only sounds are breath and stifled moans.

Michael peels the sheets back and runs his hands over   
and over flushing skin. Laps at the acrid, needful sweat.  
Listens for the sound of Sammy's heart racing to meet   
the rhythm of Michael's own.

"Please, Michael why --"

Not really words, not really, and Michael swallows them  
whole, chewing gently at Sammy's mouth, tasting sweet  
cheap wine and desperation. It only makes him   
hungrier. Sammy doesn't begin to thrash this time   
until Michael gets them lined up, groin to groin, need   
to need.

It's easy to get his hands around his brother's slim   
wrists, to revel in the rabbit-fast pulse against his palms,  
to press him down and press them together and move   
fast and slickening and drown in wide blue, blue eyes --

"*Sammy* --" 

And it's easy to fall just to the side of him, to hold him   
close and kiss the salt from his cheeks, the slight redness   
from his wrists. 

To work one hand between their bodies to where Sammy   
needs him most. To where Michael needs to be. It's going  
to be all right, Michael will make it all right, just the two   
of them, just like always, and forever, no one else, no   
one...

And when it's over Sammy is fully his once again, pliant   
in his arms and still. Michael kisses the plushly swollen   
lips again, and again, and does not return to his own bed  
until he knows Sammy is asleep and the only scent on   
Michael's body is that of his beautiful brother.

He is pure again, and easy within himself once again.

End.


End file.
